The Ohio Constitution by David Barton

The Propaganda

For example, when Ohio territory applied for statehood in 1802, its enabling act required that Ohio form its government in a manner “not repugnant to the Ordinance.” Consequently, the Ohio constitution declared: Religion, morality, and knowledge being essentially necessary to the good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision. While this requirement originally applied to all the territorial holdings of the United States in 1789 the Northwest Territory Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, as more territory was gradually ceded to the United States the Southern Territory Mississippi and Alabama, Congress applied the requirements of the Ordinance to that new territory.

Therefore, when Mississippi applied for statehood in 1817, Congress required that it form its government in a manner “not repugnant to the principles of the Ordinance.” Hence, the Mississippi constitution declared: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged in this State.

Congress later extended the same requirements to the Missouri Territory Missouri and Arkansas and then on to subsequent territories. Consequently, the provision coupling religion and schools continued to appear in State constitutions for decades. For example, the 1858 Kansas constitution required: Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to make suitable provisions for the encouragement of schools and the means of instruction.

Similarly, the 1875 Nebraska constitution required: Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws to encourage schools and the means of instruction.

The Facts:

While the wording:

Article 3.

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

did occur in the Northwest Ordinance, and initially this particular version did appear in the Ohio Constitution

sec 3. That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no man shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent, and that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious society or mode of worship, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office of trust or profit. But religion, morality and knowledge being essentially necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instructions shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision not inconsistent with the rights of conscience.

and while some form of the same wording did appear in many state Constitutions, there is a lot that David Barton left out and didn't bother tell you in his little piece quoted above. The results are quite different and opposite than what Barton implies in his piece above. For instance, he didn't bother to tell you the following:

The ambiguity that results from relying on earlier acts and practices as evidence of the Founders' intent is also demonstrated by the Northwest Land Ordinance of 1787, which was passed by the Confederation Congress and reaffirmed by the First Congress in 1791. Some people have argued that language contained in the third article of the Ordinance, stating that "[r]eligion, morality and knowledge [are] necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,' indicates that Congress believed that government relied on and was partially responsible for religion.205 In Wallace, Justice Rehnquist opined that this language "confirm[s] the view that Congress did not mean that the Government should be neutral between religion and irreligion."206 This language, however, must be read within the context of earlier versions of the Ordinance, particularly the failed 1785 proposal, which would have provided actual land grants "for the support of religion."207 Despite the efforts of pro-establishment members from New England, Congress rejected both the public support of religion and language encouraging "institutions for the promotion of religion," finally settling on the ultimate phraseology.208 Although the final language was included to placate the traditionalists, it is also likely that the compromise language bothered few members, especially in light of the religious rhetoric common at that time.209 Clearly, though, the rhetoric had its limits and Congress was unwilling to place any substance behind the language of the Ordinance.210 Viewed in this context, the Northwest Ordinance is not an endorsement of religion that undermines the Everson interpretation; rather, it depicts the progression of separationist thought during the period away from the financial and symbolic support of religion.

210 See Smith, supra note 138, at 599, 601-02. James Madison saw the attempted land grant as being akin to a religious establishment. In a 1785 letter to James Monroe, Madison wrote that he was glad that

Cong[ress] had expunged a clause contained in the first for setting apart a district of land in each Township for supporting the Religion of the majority of inhabitants. How a regulation so unjust in itself, so foreign to the Authority of Cong[ress], so hurtful to the sale of public land, and smelling so strongly of antiquated Bigotry, could have received the countenance of a [committee] is truly [a] matter of astonishment.

Letter from James Madison to James Monroe (May 29, 1785), in The Writings of James Madison 1783-1787, at 143, 145 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1901).

In 1785 a proposal in opposition to true freedom of religion almost became public policy in the Land Ordinance for the Northwest Territory. While historians have often emphasized the importance of the Land Ordinance of 1785 in setting federal precedent for scientific township surveys of the national domain and for granting land for the support of public education, few have noted that federal support of religion was almost provided for in that same document.(1) An investigation into the politics of the Ordinance of 1785 reveals that a majority of the members of the Continental Congress favored support of religion in the western lands north of the Ohio River, and governmental support for religion nearly became public policy. Though a majority of states did not vote for a religious provision in the ordinance, seventeen of twenty-three congressmen voted for the religious provision. This fact indicates that, while the church-state relationship was being uprooted in America during the post-Revolutionary period, there was still strong support to further religion through governmental action. The concept of religious freedom to many of the congressmen did not mean complete separation of church and state. Many still believed that supporting religion with grants of land was an acceptable practice. Because the clause for the support of religion through land grants was eventually defeated, the Land Ordinance of 1785 can be looked upon as an important step toward freedom of religion in America.

By the time the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified in 1791, freedom of religion and separation of church and state at the federal level had been secured, and individual states had few restrictions concerning either separation of church and state or freedom of religion. Yet, only a short six years before, in a debate over the proposed ordinance for disposing of lands in the western territory, seventeen of twenty-three members of the Continental Congress favored the following provision: "There shall be reserv'd the Central section of every township for the maintenance of public schools and the section immediately adjoining the same to the northward for the support of religion."(2) When the provision came up for a vote, had the wording of the motion concerning religion been "shall the former part be deleted" rather than "shall the former part stand, "(3) the religious proposal would almost assuredly have remained in the Ordinance of 1785.

Why, at a time of strong moves in the states for separation of church and state, and during a movement toward religious freedom, should almost 75 percent of the members of the Continental Congress favor a religious clause incorporated in the organization of western lands? Was it, as Edmund Burnett stated, "nothing short of astounding that a proposition so contrary to the spirit of religious liberty should have crept into the measure"? Furthermore, was it "scarcely less remarkable" that seventeen of the twenty-three voted for it "when a movement was undertaken to expunge it"(4) Was the religious clause "smelling so strongly of antiquated Bigotry," as James Madison stated, that to consider it was "truly [a] matter of astonishment."(5)

When the Ordinance of 1785 was being considered by the Continental Congress, religious freedom was in a state of flux. The movement toward religious freedom and separation of church and state was not strong enough to prevent religious provisions from being introduced into federal land legislation; nor were old religious precedents, especially in New England, strong enough to force religious provisions into all western land bills. Often the provisions were either modified or strick› from the completed legislation.

The last important attempts at federal legislation favoring support of religion occurred in the 1780s. The religious provision was stricken from the Ordinance of 1785. A similar proposal supporting religion was removed two years later from the Northwest Ordinance. (6) The only restriction on religious freedom in the Northwest Ordinance--a questionable restriction to be sure--was the statement that "religion ... being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind" shall be encouraged. (7) In the same decade, two federal land grants to private groups or individuals--the Ohio Company and John Symmes--contained religious provisions. The Massachusetts-dominated Ohio Company received a grant from Congress in the summer of 1787 reserving "section sixteen for schools, twenty-nine for religion, eight, eleven, and twenty-six to be disposed by Congress and two townships for a university."(8) The Symmes grant of 1787 contained a similar provision. The Symmes tract of Ohio territory allowed for one section of each township for religion, one section for education, and one township for a seminary of learning. (9) The provision for religion in the Symmes tract was the last one to be included in a land grant from the federal government.(10)

To many American leaders in the 1780s, religious freedom and government aid to religion were compatible. Two statements in the original 1787 bill that became the Northwest Ordinance supported religious freedom and at the same time gave federal support to religion. On religious freedom, the bill called for "extending... the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty" and further stated that "no person.., shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments." (11) Nevertheless, the original bill asked for aid to religion, stating that "institutions for the promotion of religion and morality . . . shall ever be encouraged."(12)

Historically, religion had played an important part in the political control of the colonies and the granting of new lands. In New England especially, it was common to include land grants for religious purposes. In 1718 a Hartford, Connecticut, company was organized to settle a new town. Three sections or shares were set aside "for pious uses." (13) In New Hampshire, forty charters were issued for new settlements between 1748 and 1768. In each, land was reserved for the minister, the ministry, and a school.(14) Boston, in 1735, received three townships of land in New Hampshire, "one to be for the first settled minister, one for the ministry, and one for a school. "(15) In 1785, the year of the western territory land ordinance, a Massachusetts land law granted one group five townships in the district of Maine. In each of the townships four lots were reserved, "one for the minister, one for the ministry, one for future appropriations, and one for a school." (16) Provisions for religious purposes as well as for education were common throughout New England. The precedent was set for similar provisions in the new western land grants.

In the colonial South, the established Episcopal Church lost much of its influence when the Revolution began. Because of the ties of the Episcopal Church to the Church of England, it was expected that when the Revolution started there would be a stronger movement for the disestablishment of the Church in the South than in New England. The Revolution, too, would have a profound effect on western settlement when land became a form of military payment.

Even before the Treaty of Paris had been signed, Massachusetts's Colonel Timothy Pickering, representing a group of Revolutionary War officers, proposed a plan for a state in the Northwest. In June 1783 Rufus Putnam, who had been interested in land speculation since the French and Indian War, (17) drew up a petition and submitted Pickering's plan to the Continental Congress. (18) The petition called for land of the Ohio to be divided into "townships six miles square allowing to each township three thousand and forty acres for the ministry, schools, wastelands, rivers, ponds, and highways."(19) The petition remained in committee, but the township, school, and ministry provisions were later seen in the 1785 land proposal. It was not strange that a plan such as Pickering's should include a religious provision, for the Massachusetts Constitution of 1779 (20) contained the following clause: "It is the right and duty of the legislature to authorize and require the several towns . . . to make suitable provision at their own expense for the instruction of public worship of God." (21) Understandably, it would be easier for the settlers to have the federal government grant land for religion than to provide for the expenses themselves. The conservative leaders of Massachusetts were not ready for disestablishment. They were prepared to transfer their faith to new territory in the West.

The Continental Congress had good reason for not acting on the Putnam petition, for the western lands had neither been secured from the Indians nor ceded by the several states. Virginia had the oldest and best established claim to the land north of the Ohio River. In September 1783 Congress voted to accept Virginia's cession if Virginia would agree to congressional modifications. On 1 March 1784 Virginia ceded its lands north of the Ohio River to the federal government. Thomas Jefferson, congressional delegate, immediately presented a plan for the temporary government of the western territory. (22) Jefferson's plan was adopted less than two months later with minor amendments. This completed, Jefferson presented a bill on 7 May 1784 "for ascertaining the mode of locating and disposing of lands in the Western Territory.(23) This plan contained no religious provision. Later that month, Congress postponed the plan indefinitely. (24) The bill was again reported unchanged on 4 March 1785.(25) A committee, consisting of one representative from each state, was appointed to review the bill. Less than one month later, a new bill bearing Jefferson's name was presented to Congress. It was in this bill that the key statement on religion, "the section immediately adjoining the same to the northward for the support of religion," appeared.(26)

There is evidence that this bill, which became the Land Ordinance of 1785, was principally the work of two men, William Grayson of Virginia and Rufus King of Massachusetts. Congressman King was strongly influenced by his unofficial advisor, Pickering. Grayson evidently was instrumental in drawing up the document, using the 1784 Jefferson bill only as a guide. In a letter dated 12 April 1785 from James Monroe, delegate of Virginia, to Jefferson, then Minister to France, Monroe wrote: "A report [the Ordinance of 1785] drawn principally by Colo. Grayson will be deliver'd in a few days. It deviates I believe essentially from the one at Annapolis [Jefferson's original bill].(27) The evidence, though, is stronger that Pickering, through King, had the greatest effect upon the bill. Since 1783 Pickering had had a keen interest in western land developments. On 8 March 1785 Pickering discussed the situation in a lengthy letter to King. "In looking over the Act of Congress of 23 of April last," Pickering wrote, "I observe there is no provision made for ministers of the gospel, nor even schools or academies. The latter might have been brought into view.(28) When the bill was reported to Congress on 14 April, Pickering's ideals were "brought into view." The next day, King complimented Pickering on his Ingenious communications on the mode of disposing of the Western territory." King believed that Pickering's 'ideas had weight with the committee who reported this ordinance.(29) Pickering himself believed that his influence had been felt. He wrote to a friend: "Mr. King has sent me the last report about the western territory. I see a great and general conformity to my ideas suggested to him."(30) Virginia's Grayson, on the same day in a draft to George Washington, confirmed the New England Influence. Grayson held that the Eastern states desired the "idea of townships with the temptation of a support for religion and education." He further explained that this support "holds forth an inducement for neighborhoods of the same religious sentiments to confederate for the purchasing and settling together.(31) The New England influence, thus, can clearly be seen.

In the debate over the proposed land ordinance, the key question concerned the method of sale for western lands. New England favored sale by township while the South called for indiscriminate location, the usual form of Southern settlement. Even though days were consumed on the land debate, the religious issue was discussed vigorously, and one day was spent debating the issue in Congress.32 The land sale was resolved through compromise as half the land was to be sold by townships while the other half was to be sold in smaller sections, a provision favorable to Southerners. The religious question failed in compromise and was lost to the Ordinance.

FOOTNOTES:

1. No mention of an attempt to include a provision supporting religion by grants of land in the Land Ordinance of 1785 is made in any of the following histories:
Thomas Perkins Abernathy, Western Lands and the American Revolution (New
York: Russell and Russell,1959); Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion:
A History of the American Frontier (New York: Macmillan, 1949); Beverley
W. Bond, Jr., The Civilization of the Old Northwest (New York: Macmillan, 1934); Clarence E. Carter and John P. Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, 28 vols. to date (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1934-); Joseph L. Davis, Sectionalism in American Politics, 1774-1787 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977); John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789 (Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, 1902); Amelia C. Ford, Colonial Precedents of Our Land System as It Existed in 1800, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, no. 352 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1910); David F. Hawke, The Colonial Experience (Indianapolois, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966); Edward F. Humphrey, Nationalism and Religion in America, 1774-1791 (Boston: Chipman Law Publishing, 1924); Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1940); Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1791 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1948); Merrilt Jensen, "The Cession of the Old Northwest," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 23 (June 1936):27-46; Dan M. Lacy, The Meaning of the American Revolution (New York: New American Library, 1966); David T. Morgan and William J. Schmidt, North Carolinians in the Continental Congress (Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, 1976); Edmund S. Morgan, The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); Allan Nevins, The American States During and After the Revolution: 1775-1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1924); Frederic A. Ogg, The Old Northwest (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1920); Malcolm J. Rohrbough, The Trans-Appalachian Frontier: People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1791 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Harry N. Scheiber, ed., The Old Northwest (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969); Jack M. Sosin, ed., The Opening of the West (New York: Harper and Row, 1969); Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt, 1920); James C. Welling, "The Land Politics of the United States," in Proceedings of the New York Historical Society (New York: New York Historical Society, 1888), pp. 5-40; Esmond Wright, Fabric of Freedom, 1763-1800 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978); and Louis B. Wright, Culture on the Moving Frontier (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955). The following publications do mention religion and the Land Ordinance of 1785: George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, 6 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1885), 6:134; Edmund C. Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: Macmillan, 1941), p. 624; Vernon E. Carstensen, ed., The Public Lands: Studies in the History of the Public Domain (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963) pp. 10-11; George W. Knight, "History and Management of [Federal] Land Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory," Papers of the American Historical Association, 5 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1885-91), 1:18, 73-247; William D. Pattison, Beginnings of the American Rectangular Land Survey System, 1784-1791 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 26; Joseph Schafer, The Origin of the System of Land Grants for Education, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, no. 63 (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1902), p. 41; and Payson Jackson Treat, The National Land System: 1785-1820 (New York: E. B. Treat, 1910), pp. 24, 30,264-65. Of these, only Burnett's The Continental Congress and Schafer's The Origin of the System of Land Grants for Education attempt to explain the religious provision.

(20). Elisha P. Douglass, Rebels and Democrats (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955), pp. 192, 195. Douglass points out that fraudulent tabulation of the ratifying vote distorted the will of the majority and assured the ratification of the Constitution. He also notes that state support of the religious "provision particularly aroused [democratic] antagonism."

(21). Humphrey, Nationalism and Religion in America, p. 365.

(22). A committee chaired by Jefferson included Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, David Howell of Rhode Island, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, and Jacob Read of South Carolina; see Treat, The National Land System: 1785-1820, p. 22.

(23). Knight,"History and Management of [Federal] Land Grants for Education," 1:83.

(32). Journals, 28:293-95. The debates are not recorded, but five amendments were offered to the religious clause.

Source of Information: Excerpt from Freedom of Religion and the Land Ordinance of 1785, Ronald A. Smith, p 589, Journal of Church and State, Vol. 24, Autumn 1982,
Number 3 J.M Dawson Studies in Church and State, Baylor University )

Jamesw A Rhodes cited the following in Short History of Ohio Land Grants

DIRECTLY IN OHIO:

MINISTERIAL LANDS

In the formation of our government, the setting apart of public lands for the support of schools and setting aside of public lands for the purpose of religion form two interesting chapters in our history and probably the least understood by the people.

Ohio holds the distinction today of being the only state in the Union in which land was set aside by congress for the support of religion. Congress, after setting aside for the support of religion, certain land from two purchases made when the state was still a part of the Northwest Territory, realized that in so doing it has probably violated one of the main principles which caused the Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, to leave their mother country, namely the separation of church and state. The early congress soon recognized the folly of its act and refused to take similar action at any subsequent meetings.

Source of Information: Excerpt from Short History of Ohio Land Grants James A. Rhodes Auditor of State-1953-1963. Supervisor of School and Ministerial Lands, Custodian of Public Land Records. pp 29-30

It was only in the first purchases of each company that the support for religion was included. Such was not approved or included in the second purchases by either company.

Additional Background see:

Does the Northwest Ordinance prove that the First Amendment did not separate church and state?

Barton left things standing so as to at the very least leave the implication that in all the various states with such wording in their Constitutions that sections of lands were set aside to be used to support religion.

He also didn't mention that by the mid 1800s and on into the late 1800s most state Constitutions had clauses prohibiting the use of tax monies to support religious institutions or religious schools.

I might add: "The dilemma outlined in this chapter was succinctly described by Justice William Rehnquist in Wallace v. Jaffree:"The Rehnquist opinion was a dissenting opinion and as such carries no legal weight. Rehnquist couldn't convince other justices to support his argument. His dissent is also full of historical errors.

Rehnquist, Wallace v. Jaffree: a Rebuttal

Rehnquist's fallacious ideas of history are rebutted with historical references and material provided.